


Better Left Unknown

by TriffidsandCuckoos



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (even though Christmas does not feature), Canon-Typical Murder Victims, Case Fic, Christmas, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Meet the Family, Original Character(s), Post-Hiatus, Prompt Fic, Ridiculous amounts of original characters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2013-01-30
Packaged: 2017-11-27 11:49:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/661669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TriffidsandCuckoos/pseuds/TriffidsandCuckoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A case where all the suspects are dead means John finally gets to meet the family. He very quickly begins to regret this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Better Left Unknown

**Author's Note:**

> Written for alafaye as part of the Sherlockmas 2012 Secret Santa gift exchange and based on trying to combine all four of her prompts plus her preferences into one massive fic.
> 
> There are some fairly shameless references with regard to names in this fic, and I'm not even a little bit sorry. Also, this could very easily have been twice the length, and I still haven't ruled out a 'director's cut', if only to actually include all the family members reduced to one-line mentions.

Christmas is approaching, and, like most adults after the shine’s worn off, John finds himself slightly excited, very stressed, and definitely apprehensive. While these are all fairly standard for him, this year the reason is less related to the prospect of a day in an enclosed space with his family – Harry twitching at the memories of what she associates with this holiday, their mother absent, their father awkward – and rather concern the consulting detective currently sulking on the sofa. Sherlock’s short a case, yet again, but more than that, a letter arrived a few days ago which threw him into an even worse strop than usual.

John tries, he really does. Nobody can say that he doesn’t – in fact he gets more sympathy than anything else, almost always alongside relief that nobody else has to do the job anymore. But at times like this he does wonder whether this relationship isn’t slowly bleeding him dry, since Sherlock has these moments (or days, or weeks) and when he does, it’s hard to remember whether he gives John anything in return.

The thought’s unfair. Hopefully John’s just irritable, what with all the flu and coughs and colds he’s dealing with on a regular basis. Generally he likes kids, but illness does not bring out their best side, and especially not when the parents are too exhausted themselves by the season to really control them.

And then he comes home and he’s got his own child to deal with.

(Except that thought’s more than a little bit disturbing, so he edges away from it very quickly.)

The letter in question is still on the mantelpiece next to the skull, stabbed through with more than the usual enthusiasm. 

_It can’t be that bad._

_No. It’s worse._

Apparently if John doesn’t look forward to family gatherings, that’s nothing compared to Sherlock.

(They’d had this argument before, four years ago – Christ, that long ago? Back then, though, it was still their first Christmas in Baker Street, and Sherlock had wheedled a ‘yes’ out of him, if only by playing the ‘Watson Christmas’ card – something to be avoided at all costs.)

He’d tried arguing it out, if only out of curiosity about what other mad men-and-women are lurking in the branches of the family tree, only this turned out to be one of the issues where Sherlock was not willing to play along. Less shouting and more stony silence. Which left the matter where it was now: hanging in the air, filling a space already tense with the baffling lack of murder in the Christmas season.

The text almost comes as a relief.

“Mycroft,” John says, just to hear Sherlock’s scoff at the obvious announcement. Annoying him with obviousness has always had a soothing effect on John, transferring his own frustration through the medium of being smug. He can tell why Sherlock enjoys it so much – not that that gains the man any sympathy whatsoever.

He glances down at his phone, and then feels his eyebrows rise in surprise. “I guess it does run in the family,” he mutters to himself. Then, raising his voice again, he informs his inevitable audience, “Apparently you’ve had a murder.”

“Say it was the Sackvilles.” Despite the news in his hand, John can’t help but roll his eyes at the theatrical sigh weighing down Sherlock’s words.

“It doesn’t say who.”

“Not interested,” Sherlock bites out, enunciating every syllable, and if anything manages to collapse even more into the posture and attitude of a fictionalised Victorian consumptive. It’s like he can just liquefy his bones with the sheer power of his disdain. John’s vindictive side eagerly awaits the day Sherlock’s back problems finally kick in.

Another beep. John sighs before reading it out.

“Mycroft says you will be.”

“My brother says a great deal of things. He’s a politician; he assumes he’s right.”

“And you say that you never take an interest in politics.”

That earns him a smile: a success slightly undermined by his phone going off for a third time. Not that multiple texts are all that unusual when your life encounters either of the Holmes brothers, let alone both, but it does make John wonder sometimes whether they think ‘send’ is text-talk for a new paragraph.

Then he reads the bloody thing.

An instant later, he is apparently the centre of Sherlock’s world. “What,” he states, in that way of his that suggests he will not even show courtesy to the common question mark.

John points out, “I didn’t say anything.”

“Yes, you did.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You made a noise.” The ridiculous phrase is only made more so by the use of Sherlock’s intensely serious _give me the case now_ voice. “What did Mycroft tell you?”

John already knows how this conversation is going to end. He’s not sure if he likes it. But then again, it is Christmas, or it will be soon, and a sulking Sherlock guarantees that it won’t be a pleasant one.

“Apparently there are suspects.”

Sherlock nods impatiently, positively twitching with the need to launch himself across the room and seize the phone from John’s hands. That he doesn’t shows what a long way they’ve come. “Yes, and?”

“And they’re all dead.”

He can practically hear the click in Sherlock’s head.

“I’ll start packing, shall I?”

\----------

Sherlock’s home is as massive and ostentatious and showy and everything else as John had cruelly envisioned in his more stereotypically-inclined moments.

That’s slightly wrong, though. This isn’t Sherlock’s home; it’s just where he came from.

John can tell because when he looks from the soaring stone walls looming outside his window and the glimpses of sprawling intricate grounds to the man slumped against the car door, he doesn’t see the place where his flatmate, colleague and occasional boyfriend (if they’re using that term this week) belongs.

They finally reach a pair of magnificent wrought-iron gates, which reluctantly open despite nobody reaching for the intercom (John recognises Mycroft’s hand), and somehow Sherlock finds a way to sink lower.

“It can’t be that bad,” John says, because he thinks that will go down better than extensive swearing at the sight of the place. (What do you even do with a house that big? Host reality shows?) Only a moment later does he realise he’s echoing himself from the first sight of the invitation.

Which might be why, rather than debating the point, Sherlock just turns towards the window and glares out – at the mansion or the various cars (couple of Bentleys and definitely an Aston Martin, but John takes comfort from the mud-splattered Land Rover at the end), John isn’t entirely sure.

\----------

John is rather ashamed to realise that he’s so busy gawping at the mansion like the state-school lower-middle-class ex-soldier he is that he actually doesn’t notice the body for a moment. 

(In his defence, the entrance hall – or whatever the right name for it is – is even larger than he’d been expecting, ornate staircases and impressive paintings and, he’d noted with more than a little hysterical glee, even a suit of armour at the back. Although the last feature seems a rather bad idea in a house which saw a young Sherlock, so either there are some decapitation stories John hasn’t heard yet, or this is Mycroft trying to impress/intimidate again.)

She’s pretty, he thinks detachedly (becoming all too familiar these days), focusing on the person because God knows Sherlock won’t. Pretty, but apparently didn’t think it was good enough, judging by the make-up caking her face. If he had to guess from here, he’d say she was in her late twenties, and there’s that other thing he’s starting to get a lot, where he thinks something – in this case, _trying to look older_ \- and he’s not entirely sure where it came from. He doesn’t say so because in no way does he need to secure Sherlock’s approval like a six-year-old with a finger-painting.

“Ms Jaime Lewis.” Mycroft makes the introductions, as if his brother isn’t already crouched by the bed and peering at her corpse like a painting in the National Gallery. As per usual, it’s left to John to make the polite responses, appreciating, now that he’s looked and confirmed anything he wanted to see for himself, the opportunity not to look at a woman with a large hole blasted through her chest. “Cleaner. Usually only with us during daylight hours, of course, but last night she stayed with us due to a rather charming threat from her lover.” 

John considers the text that brought them here. “He’s dead too?”

“Poisoned,” Mycroft confirms with the same polite smile he’s worn since Sherlock came charging up to him in front of the door and demanded to be taken the ‘only thing of interest around here’. If John isn’t mistaken, it looks a little more strained than usual. Normally he’d say it’s Sherlock’s fault, or possibly the whole ‘dead body in respectable home’ business, only if anything Mycroft had looked relieved to see his brother – always strange and never a good sign – and now that they’re ensconced with the corpse he doesn’t look nervous. 

In his notebook, to the side of the case notes, he scribbles, _Family?_

“Anything unidentifiable?” Sherlock asks, naturally more concerned for the moment with details concerning murders than Mycroft’s moods.

“Hardly,” Mycroft sniffs. “Cleaning products in various food and drink items around the house.”

Sherlock grabs Jaime’s hand and smells it. “Taking the initiative,” he judges.

John winces. “Sherlock.” He doesn’t have to sound so approving.

“Difficult circumstances, simple solution.”

“Except she’s dead.”

“Not something she’d planned,” is Sherlock’s defence. “Look at her: all dressed up, fancy make-up; she wanted to celebrate.”

“Who with?”

Sherlock diverts his attention for a moment to narrow a laser-eyed glare at John. “With _whom_ ,” he corrects, in the voice he usually employs for making women cry. John smiles steadily back. 

Mycroft clears his throat pointedly. From some hidden pocket in his suit jacket he produces a notebook, as if either of them are supposed to believe that he doesn’t have all of this in his head already. 

“The local police service,” he enunciates smoothly – always a sure sign that he’s pissed off about something – “based on the evidence presented to them, have elected to accuse Mr Slater, our beekeeper. Given that both Mr Slater and the other obvious candidates are now deceased, the point is rather a moot one, wouldn’t you say?”

Sherlock does not say. Sherlock clearly thinks that the very idea is moronic.

John is distracted by other details. “I’m sorry, did you say you have a beekeeper?”

“How did Slater die?” Sherlock asks, ignoring him.

“A _beekeeper_?”

“Shot himself in his home – very tragic, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

“Who has a beekeeper?”

Without looking at him, Sherlock replies, “People who keep bees. Dead before this one?”

“Afterwards, by a different gun. I presume the locals assumed he liked to compartmentalise.”

There’s something about the way Mycroft says the word ‘locals’, every inch the stereotypical upper-class gentleman, which suggests the police don’t get called in very much around here.

John comments, “I’m surprised you didn’t call in Lestrade, if you hate them that much,” because he’s never been able to pin down exactly what the relationship there is exactly, only that there is one. Mycroft merely sighs, and might have even looked wistful if his facial muscles worked the right way.

“So, three dead,” Sherlock mutters from where he’s still squatting on the floor. “The rest?”

“A Mr Edward Davies – brother, no doubt entirely by coincidence, of Mr Stephen Davies, our poisonee – found in the grounds along with some small portion of our silver; and also Ms McReady, our beloved housekeeper.”

Because he is once again the only human being in this room, John says, “God, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Sherlock mutters. Mycroft looks disapproving but says nothing, suggesting that the look is more for appearance’s sake. John has a brief, giddy vision of some sort of Enid Blyton novel where the two brothers spent their young lives getting into scrapes and avoiding some sort of harsh matron figure. Then the other childish part of his brain observes that if a matron figure is needed, Mycroft can fill the part, and he has to turn away to hide a grin.

As it goes, a thought occurs to him, regarding where they actually are right now. “Wait, I thought you had family over?”

“We do.”

Something about the words seems to physically lower the temperature in the room.

“Oh.” John looks at Mycroft’s disturbingly neutral face – more telling than Sherlock’s, since Mycroft actually acts like a functioning adult most of the time – and asks, “Not good?”

All Mycroft will offer is “The same as usual,” but his face looks a few seconds away from muscular spasms from the effort of maintaining his usual calm. Given that Mycroft occupies some sort of role in the British government (up to and including being it) and hence voluntarily spends large amounts of time around politicians, John is suddenly surprisingly scared. Mycroft seems to take a moment to calm himself, before addressing Sherlock, “You should know that in the time of your absence matters have not improved.”

“Not surprised,” Sherlock mutters, in the same voice that means, _not interested_.

“You should know that Laetitia in particular has never stopped believing you were guilty.”

At that, John sees Sherlock visibly freeze – even his eyes stop scanning the room, coming to an angry rest. John sees this because he is suddenly very eager to find something, _anything_ else to focus on than punching unknown women in the face.

“And Laetitia is…?” he asks, ignoring how his left hand is very steady indeed.

“Laetitia Sackville,” Mycroft tells him, “Mummy’s sister. A charming woman, I’m sure you’ll find.”

“Surprised she isn’t in here already,” Sherlock mutters to the corpse, something dark and not exactly pleasant in his voice.

“Oh, she would be,” Mycroft assures him, “but I fear her performances of grief might have distracted her momentarily from your arrival.”

For the first time, Sherlock turns to face his brother, expression incredulous. “Grief?” he repeats, in a voice that suggests the very idea is laughable. “For whom?”

“Algernon,” is the answer, and despite being in the presence of a Sherlock and a Mycroft, John has to fight hard not to laugh. “Hardly the favourite son, you’ll remember, but apparently a cardiac arrest on Holmes soil cures all ills.” He eyes Sherlock, far too casual all of a sudden, and adds, “Laetitia seems to think our father is in a murderous mood.”

John is too distracted by the abrupt and entirely new allusion to Holmes senior to register Sherlock’s reaction, or anything but sheer surprise. That is, until a snide voice fills the room – the sort of voice that runs fingernails down the back of your neck

“Well well well, what a surprise. Might have guessed the prodigal son would head straight for the corpses.”

John slowly turns around.

Framed in the doorway is a woman who looks about sixty, with red hair that is painfully obviously dyed and eyeliner that looks more like war paint. She looks unpleasantly like she’s been sucking on a lemon, and judging by the direction of her gaze, said expression has more than a little to do with Sherlock. A glance tells John that she is receiving one of Sherlock’s very finest glares and not wavering for a moment. Despite a creeping suspicion regarding identity, he can’t help but be momentarily impressed.

“Laetitia,” Mycroft greets, smile looking suspiciously like his teeth are gritted. “Speak of the devil, as the old saying goes.”

Laetitia Sackville ignores him, homing in on Sherlock. “Disgusting,” she announces, with a voice that sounds like she’s trying hard to cover up a distinctly northern accent (John’s not sure where exactly). “Bad enough you coming back here, but corpses over family? It’s not right.”

“Strange,” Sherlock says, quietly, the calm before the storm if John is any judge, “I thought you were the unwelcome guest here.”

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Bad as your father: cutting decent people out so you can lord it over us all.”

“Decent?” John recalls the far-off memory: _Who cares about decent?_ To be fair, this isn’t the first time he’s sensed an exception. “I can only assume you’re not referring to a line which has produced nothing but greedy opportunists. You must have had at least two husbands to pay for a frankly appalling dye-job and a facelift that’s not fooling anyone, not to mention that jewellery – unless your lawyers have substantially improved since last we met.” Barely pausing for breath, his face abruptly alters into a parody of concern as he adds, “So sorry to hear about Algernon, by the way. Heart attacks do come quickly to useless wastes of space.”

Throughout his speech, Laetitia’s face has grown whiter and whiter. When Sherlock smiles in his fake way at her, John’s surprised she doesn’t launch herself forward and try to rend his flesh with what look like rather terrifying nails.

Then she suddenly calms; returns the smile in a wholly unpleasant way. “Better a useless wimp,” she declares, and John notes the added insult, “than a criminal.”

“I’m sorry?” he hears somebody ask; realises it’s him.

Needless to say, Laetitia looks less than impressed at being interrupted. “And who are you supposed to be?”

John can feel the comforting calm settling over him; by his side, his left hand lies still. “Dr John Watson,” he tells her, wondering immediately if he should have included the ‘Captain’. 

“Oh,” she says, as if she’s found something unpleasant on the bottom of her almost definitely horribly expensive shoes, “Yes. His faithful dog.”

“Boyfriend.” He returns her gaze as steadily as if it was a sniper rifle. “Actually.”

No doubt Sherlock and Mycroft are reacting, but John’s world has narrowed to nothing but Laetitia.

Laetitia, who after a moment of shock smiles poisonously, shooting a sideways glance at Sherlock before speaking. “So proud, I see.”

“Yes, as a matter of fact.”

“I wonder if you really know anything about this family. Say, for example, their father.”

“What about him?” John says before he can stop himself, and instantly recognises it for the mistake it is, by the way that her face lights up.

“Oh, you don’t know?”

“Nothing was ever proved,” Mycroft says, and his voice is terrifying calm. “I would thank you, Laetitia, to take your accusations and hearsay elsewhere.”

“These things do run in the family, you know. You can’t cover it up forever.”

“You don’t mean you still think Sherlock’s a fraud?” John asks, because he’s heard this before, but, perhaps rather naively, hadn’t expected it here.

“I’m supposed to trust anything with his meddling brother in charge?” She snaps out a finger like a knife, jabbing towards Mycroft, who returns her glare with the icy indifference only he can manage. “Took him a while, I’m sure – the truth always does.”

“Believe what you like,” John tells her. “I trust both of them.”

He hadn’t meant to let the ‘both’ out, but there it is, in the open. Mycroft actually looks rather flattered. Laetitia looks furious.

“I don’t think I need the word of some jumped-up soldier to tell me what to think!”

John is about to call her something very rude indeed, when suddenly Sherlock stands and leaves, without another word.

John considers whether or not he really wants to stay in this room, let alone this conversation, and follows, trying not to slam the door too pettily behind him (he fails).

“Sherlock, what the hell – ”

Sherlock interrupts him (not in itself unusual) by turning around and kissing him (more unusual), almost hard enough to bruise. John has a brief second of surprise and confusion, before he fully registers what is happening and kisses back, reaching out to grab handfuls of Sherlock’s coat, pulling him in closer, trying to take control out of instinct if nothing else. Sherlock’s response is to open his mouth, and, well, there’s no way John’s not going to take advantage of that.

It’s sharp and abrupt and, perhaps most of all, short. Just as suddenly as it started, it’s over, and when John blinks his eyes open, he finds Sherlock _looking_ at him, still only a few millimetres away.

Then he turns and he’s gone, stalking down the corridor, coat flaring as dramatically as ever behind him.

In the dazed post-kiss/post-Sherlock state of mind, John finally realises that Sherlock hasn’t taken his coat off inside his childhood home.

“Bloody hell,” he hears, “now why can’t I ever get my husband to kiss me like that?”

Oh no.

Slowly John turns to see a woman maybe a few years older than Sherlock, with mousy hair but unmistakeable cheekbones, next to a balding man with eerily familiar eyes. She returns his horrified stare – he feels about thirteen – with a gleeful grin.

Old habits come to a rescue, of sorts, and he tells her, “He’s not my husband.”

“Yeah, laws are a bitch, ain’t they?” And before he can go on, “Agatha. Agatha Westfall. Don’t worry though, I’m from the Holmes side.”

“John Watson,” he says, holding out a hand, and is a little nonplussed when she laughs out loud.

“Don’t worry, I’d already figured,” she tells him. “I see Sherlock of all people kissing somebody like that, it’s a pretty short list of who you might be.”

He’s not entirely sure what he should think about this, but saying anything would just prolong the conversation.

“Oh, this is Geoffrey. Historian, poor bugger.”

“I’ll have you know that the study of our heritage is one of the finest pursuits to – ”

“Yes, thankyou, Geoff,” she interrupts, “John here was just leaving.”

“I was?” he asks, and she widens her eyes significantly, as if he is apparently the key to her own escape. Which presumably he was, because at his hesitation Geoffrey starts again on a completely different sentence.

“I was just telling young Jeremy about the long history of this glorious house. Did you know, John, that I have managed to trace our ancestry back to the Civil War? Before would be preferable, I know, but the sources, you see, there was a fire, so many precious documents simply up in smoke. That’s why, I was telling Arabella, why it’s so important to explore this house, find the secret passages, as it were, there could be anything, not that she wants to, of course, all she has left of him, but surely that should mean she wants to find everything she can, it is hers and his after all – ”

The words keep coming. John is very aware that he’s staring, yet Gabriel doesn’t seem to notice, going on and on and barely pausing for breath. Uncannily John’s reminded of Sherlock’s deductive monologues – the ones that don’t seem to require air. Of all the inherited traits, he thinks.

Agatha lets it run on just long enough to ensure John appreciates her valiant attempts, before cutting across and saying conversationally, “So, murder.”

“Yes.” There’s a slightly awkward pause as she raises her eyebrows and he wonders just what the hell else there is to say. Then it comes back to him. “I just met your, er, aunt?” He’s really not sure of any of the relations here. “Laetitia?” he offers, and watches as Agatha’s face turns stormy and even Geoffrey becomes suddenly tight-lipped.

“Bloody she-hag,” is Agatha’s verdict. “She wants this house, you know. Only reason any of the Sackvilles come to these things, when they hate the lot of us. Trying to elbow their way into the property market.”

“Preposterous,” Geoffrey agrees. “There has been a member of the Holmes family in residence here for centuries, as far back – or as far as I’ve found – as – ”

“Point is,” Agatha interrupts again, “ever since Arabella married into this family – gorgeous northern lass that she is – we haven’t been able to shift them.”

“Who’s Arabella?” Besides yet another relative with an appropriate name. John is considering defaulting to Watson, Doctor or even Captain for the rest of this; even in his head his name’s sheer undeniable normality is starting to fall with a loud hollow thud. 

Both of them stare at him. John hopes Arabella isn’t dead.

Geoffrey is the first to recover. “My dear boy,” John fights the instinctive violent response with a reserve of army experience on top of further time on the Holmes front, “Arabella is Mycroft and Sherlock’s mother.”

John’s only ever had the experience of being punched full in the face by one time before this: _“Dr Watson – John – he’s alive.”_

“Their mother?” he repeats.

Agatha nods encouragingly, looking a little alarmed by his reaction. “Yeah. She runs the place – Mycroft just takes over when the family shows up. Don’t think she likes all the company, to be honest – well, certain bits of company.” She turns and looks pointedly at the closed door, from behind which raised voices are starting to leak through – impressive, considering Mycroft’s commitment to teeth-grinding levels of infuriating calmness.

“She said something about their father,” John says, and if he thought he was the centre of their attention before, it was nothing compared to now.

“I just bet she did.”

“Well, she – ” John stops himself, because really, what’s he supposed to say? “She called Sherlock a fraud,” he hazards, because that part is still laser bright in his mind, “and said there was something I should know, and that Mycroft couldn’t cover everything up?”

At his words, Geoffrey looks carefully neutral – too carefully neutral – while Agatha’s face goes white, and then begins to redden alarmingly quickly.

She utters a few words any of John’s army mates would have been proud of, and then stalks into the room.

Both John and Geoffrey beat a hasty retreat down the corridor, the sounds of screaming following them.

“It is rarely a good idea to provoke Agatha,” Geoffrey observes, showing that at least one member of this family is capable of stating the obvious. “Oh dear,” he adds, “reinforcements.”

John follows his gaze to see a man and a woman – siblings, judging by the shared flaming red hair – hurrying towards the room.

“Max and Belle,” Geoffrey informs him, “or rather, Maximilian and Isabelle Sackville. To war, to war, I fear.” He leads John very carefully away – pausing only to point out some more from the Holmes side, Geoffrey’s daughter Guinevere and a stray niece named Josephine, an unmistakeable trace of pride in his voice. “It is a shame,” he reflects wistfully, watching them hasten on towards the battle. “Such a wonderful house, and yet it is constantly filled either with silent mourning or the raised voices of family warfare. Did I tell you it has a long history?”

“You did,” John tells him quickly, and adds, “You said Ara— Sherlock’s mother doesn’t want to know more?”

“Very few of them do,” Geoffrey sighs. “I managed to engage poor departed Algernon for a short while, but I fear he was only scouting for his mother. They’re searching for loopholes, you see: Ulysses – oh, their father – ” he adds, ensuring John’s further silence as he tries to cope with his brain trying to crack open at not just a name but _that_ name “ – he had the lawyers draw up a rather fascinating contract. In short, no Sackville can gain ownership of this house until every member of the Holmes line is dead. A tad irregular in this day and age, but I understand his influence was more than enough to ensure it’s recognised.”

John shakes his head. He thinks of the awkward Christmases spent with the Watsons, one seat always empty, the drinks all the more obvious by their absence, and while he certainly doesn’t miss it, he thinks he appreciates it a little bit more.

“Is that all they’re arguing about?”

“Oh, they’ll cover any number of things, and all at once. However,” and here Geoffrey’s dreamy academic eyes suddenly narrow into Holmesian sharpness, “if you are alluding to the subject I suspect, then only those two brothers have any right to tell you the story.”

\----------

John finds Mycroft an hour later in the library. He’s looking for Sherlock, but in favour of an actual explanation, he’ll make do.

Finding Mycroft here isn’t all that surprising – the real challenge was looking for the quietest place in the mansion. For all that they’d not exactly seen eye to eye before, John understands silence is Mycroft’s home away from home. 

Sometimes, modern life is too much. Mycroft had told John that silence prevents arguments, but it is, in reality, much more than that. Modern life is full of noise -- phones, voices, paperwork, clothing rustling, footsteps on tile, static in the carpet, the squeak of a chair, cars, buses, bells, whistles, music…there was never much of an end. The Diogenes was Mycroft's refuge from modern life, a place where everything was silenced and he could ease the never ending assault on his ears. (To say nothing, of course, of the soothing lights and colours one found in most of the rooms at the Diogenes.)

“I suppose,” Mycroft said smoothly, not bothering to look up, to pretend that he needs to see John to know that he’s there, “that you’re wondering as to my dearly beloved aunt’s words.”

Carefully, John says, “I’m trying not to jump to any conclusions.”

“Then, as ever, you are a rarity in this family.”

There it is again: the implied inclusion of John in ‘this family’. Once upon a time, it might have bothered him. Mycroft might not assume without data, but his way of predicting things can often be grating. A few things have changed now, though – anything from John’s tolerance of Sherlock’s brother through to the newly discovered family feuds, and, of course, most of all, John and Sherlock themselves.

“Perhaps two decades ago,” Mycroft begins, as if he expects John to believe that he doesn’t recall the exact length of time down to the second, “people used to vanish from this area. Young, old, male, female: anyone. Their bodies were never found.

“It wasn’t long before the accusations began – well, you know people. They do love the scent of scandal.”

John does know. Possibly he’ll spend the rest of his life trying to forget.

“I won’t bore you with the details – ” a blatant lie “ – but suffice to say gossip pinned the blame on a local doctor: our father. Of course, the help were more than willing to fan the fire; to discuss his secretive habits, his experiments, his long nights of frenzy – a familiar picture, I’m sure you’ll agree.”

And now John feels slightly ill.

“In the end, he died before an investigation could develop – a tragic accident, by all accounts – and given our family’s position – ”

“Including yours?”

Mycroft only smiles.

“It was decided to let the matter rest. Unfortunately,” he went on with a sigh, “the seeds of suspicion had already been sown; particularly once it was noted that the disappearances ceased around the same time.”

“Maybe the killer needed a scapegoat?” John offers, with an encouraging smile that falls flat.

“Perhaps,” is all the response he gets. 

He can tell though; tell by the way Mycroft holds himself, the fact that he’s here at all. Despite Laetitia’s poisoned words and Sherlock’s exit and the outbreak of a far less cold war between the two halves of the family, Mycroft, the diplomat’s diplomat, hadn’t said a word. 

With Mycroft, silence is as good as a confession.

That’s why he’s here.

Mycroft thinks that their father is – was – a killer.

A memory stirs, and John finds himself asking, “Was that what upset your mother?”

For a moment, he watches as Mycroft’s brain ticks over, flicking through its index for the incident. Then comes the twitch John accepts as a smile.

“From time to time, John,” he commends, “you do display some deductive skills of your own.”

From Mycroft, that’s the highest praise John can hope for.

I _upset her? It wasn’t I who upset her, Mycroft!_

John winces as the words come back to him, since they mean he doesn’t have to ask the other question that had been on the tip of his tongue. At the time all he’d been concerned about had been the fact that this madman’s arch-nemesis was an overprotective older brother. (More innocent days, he used to curse, staring up at a cracked ceiling in a featureless room.) Now they cut in a way he would never have expected.

It’s not just Mycroft who thinks that he’s the son of a murderer.

“Sherlock’s never mentioned your father. Ever.”

“Nor will he, if he is allowed any say in the matter.”

The silence falls again. John wonders what he’s even supposed to do with all this. Whether he should try to talk about it, if it’s such a big thing around here; whether he should say anything at all. Mycroft’s right, Sherlock won’t talk about it, but then, Sherlock doesn’t always get things like this right. That’s what John’s for. He’s supposed to know.

“Do you know,” Mycroft says, unexpectedly breaking his spell of protection, “there is one thing that gives me comfort.”

Whatever it is, John reckons he needs it too. “What?”

A twirl of the umbrella towards the far end of the library, the second floor (Christ, their library has _floors_ , every time he thinks he’s almost over it they throw something else at him). “We found Algernon’s body there.”

And people think that Sherlock is the brother who delights in the morbid.

\----------

In the end, he finds Sherlock not in the mansion at all, but out in the grounds.

He’s rather annoyed that he never thought to go check the corpses.

“Surprised they didn’t move him,” he comments, not needing to announce himself because no doubt Sherlock knew the moment he left the house. “Crime scene tape ruins the look of the place.”

Sherlock says nothing.

John squats down next to him, and tilts his head to examine the body. The cause of death is pretty obvious, at least to either of them: necks generally aren’t supposed to bend at that angle. Edward Davies – brother of Jaime’s boyfriend, he reminds himself – is positioned at the bottom of a fairly sharp drop that makes John wince just looking at it. Apparently this garden (more like a field and forest attachment) was designed for the more adventurous sort. There’s no sign of the man’s bag – evidence, presumably, or Mycroft eager to restore the silver to its rightful place – but John remembers Mycroft’s brief mention of an unlucky burglar. (God, it was brief, as well. This man barely merited a footnote.) (Edward, he forces himself to remember. Edward Davies.)

“Hit Ms McReady in the back of the head,” Sherlock offers. “People are so fragile.”

“Did he shoot Jaime?”

Sherlock snorts. “Hardly. No residue, no powder burns, and no reason to switch weapons if his aim was stealth.” He offers a piece of paper to John.

“A map?”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, in that particular tone which somehow turns it into a ‘no’, “except the grounds don’t look like this.”

Despite the dead body – not to mention dead bodies plural – John can’t help but take a moment to properly roll the word ‘grounds’ around his brain. He can’t help it: he hasn’t heard the word outside of ITV dramas since early secondary school field trips.

“Somebody gave him the wrong map?”

“No.”

“No?”

“That suggests it was an accident.”

John waits to let that sink in a little. As if this wasn’t already getting pretty convoluted. Now they have some sort of mastermind? (Although that at least suggests a way of tying it all together.)

After a while of watching Sherlock do what he does best – namely act like a madman and stare at corpses – John recalls the end of his previous conversation.

“Something for you from Mycroft, by the way.”

“Not interested,” is the unsurprising response, yet Sherlock still turns at the sound of rustling plastic to look at the evidence bag John’s holding out to him.

“Apparently this is as far as he let the police get,” John tells him. “Didn’t think it was possible for him to think any less of them.”

“He thinks less of the ones here.” Sherlock doesn’t take the bag, instead apparently preferring to peer in at its contents. John decides not to complain about the fact that guns can be bloody heavy. “They make Anderson look positively competent.”

“You’re lying.”

“Then you obviously don’t know me as well as you think.” Sherlock narrows his eyes, tilting his head like, yes, the cat that John is probably never going to stop mentally comparing him to. “I am _not_ a cat.” 

Not for the first time, John tests Sherlock’s telepathy by thinking _You are a twat_ as hard as possible. Not only is his faith in the natural order of things restored, but he also has a soothing sense of satisfaction.

“ _Honey_ ,” Sherlock observes, in the appalled tone of voice that signals yet another drop in his opinion of humanity. “They were going to convict a beekeeper because there was _honey_.”

“Also the ‘spurned lover’ thing, Sherlock.”

Sherlock doesn’t even bother to label that comment as ‘dull’; the dismissive gesture works perfectly well as shorthand for them. John wonders if it’s so impossible because Sherlock knew Slater wasn’t the type, or if it is just the usual idea of how people do or don’t act.

Recalling Mycroft’s explanation, he reports, “He did spill honey a lot – apparently Ms McReady used to complain all the time about him smashing jars and getting it over everything.”

“If you suggest that Ms McReady was some sort of criminal mastermind, you are sleeping alone. Forever.”

While John is highly doubtful that Sherlock will follow through on ‘forever’, he decides to just stop talking for now.

He sees the slight furrow in Sherlock’s brow a second before the bag is snatched out of his hand and key evidence emptied out onto the ground. At least, he thinks, it hasn’t rained lately. 

Sherlock raises the gun to eye level; sniffs it suspiciously; licks at the honey.

“Very sanitary,” John comments.

“Shut up.”

John fancies he can hear Sherlock’s brain working: humming, ticking, whirring, running the input through databank after databank of tastes, textures, cross-referencing and extrapolating, constantly racing towards the conclusion. Most people find it unnerving; he thinks it’s one of the most incredible things he’s been allowed to witness. But then, most people think Sherlock’s a freak, and John, well, John has already said his piece on that opinion far too many times. (Still not enough, though; never enough.)

Finally – in real-time, maybe ten seconds later – Sherlock’s eyes light up and he jumps to his feet. He grins – the full deduction grin, the one that makes him look like the madman John knows he is – and declares, “Wrong honey!”

Normally Sherlock’s enthusiasm is more than enough to carry John along, regardless of what he’s actually saying. This time, though, while he does smile, it’s slightly incredulous (not to mention already anticipating the explanation). “Wrong honey,” he repeats.

“Yes, the honey, didn’t you hear me?” Sherlock says irritably, as if being deaf is preferable to being slow. (For Sherlock, it probably is.) “It’s from too far north!” When John still looks at him blankly, he goes on, “Oh, come on now. What flowers are nearby--within a one hundred mile radius--affects the taste and make up of the honey. So. Looking at this honey--what do we deduce?"

"This it was made further north?"

"Exactly."

"Exactly what?" There’s a faint inkling of an idea at the back of John’s mind, but apparently it’s determined to stay put. This would be the inevitable part of every case: the moment(s) John finds himself trailing behind.

“The honey!”

“Sherlock, you can’t keep saying that and make it a clue!” 

“Slater wouldn’t have this honey on his hands, so somebody planted it, and whoever it was, they came from the north!”

“Why not Tesco’s?”

Sherlock scoffs at that. “I can taste where it’s from, John, that’s hardly Tesco’s standard.”

“Yes, mind telling me how you can do that?”

“You know my methods.”

“Not the honey ones. Also, bees?”

Sherlock straightens his spine, the better to look down on John, who doesn’t mind as much as usual because pettiness is something he’s fairly immune to these days. “Bees,” Sherlock informs him, “are fascinating creatures.”

John thinks he should say something witty. Instead, he tries to convey ‘incredulous’ and ‘exasperated’ and ‘unimpressed’ and ‘this explains a depressing amount’ entirely through his facial expression. Normally it wouldn’t be worth the effort, but in the same way that some boyfriends might memorise, say, eating habits, Sherlock has an entire catalogue of John’s expressions in his mind, since he never seems to arrive at the wrong conclusion when John says nothing at all. It’s flattering, to say the least.

“So,” he finally says, as drily as possible, “not Tesco’s. Does that rule out her boyfriend as well?”

“No access, no means. A distraction.” And as he says that word, he frowns slightly, as if a thought has circled back around to find him again.

Unfortunately, whatever it is, it’s headed off by the buzz of John’s phone.

“Oh God.”

“What?”

“We’re supposed to sit through dinner.” John looks up at Sherlock. “When this is all over, I never want to see your family again.”

Sherlock smiles at him – suddnely warm and genuine – and John at least has the satisfaction of having said the right thing.

\----------

The next few hours pass by in a blur of ridiculous names and improbable professions. Apparently nobody in this family is called ‘Tom’ or ‘Steve’, and certainly not ‘John’, nor are any of them anything less than ridiculously successful, either presently or in the past. That is, apart from Algernon, but John only knows this from the rest of the family, since according to the Sackvilles – quite singularly unlikable, but then it’s possible John has been biased ever since that particular introduction – Algernon was some sort of Greek god with a poet’s heart (“bloody useless lump, used to coasting on his looks right until he got dumped out of uni,” Agatha informs him, and John loves her). They all act as if he was struck dead by some sort of lightning bolt the moment he entered these unhealthy grounds, which, John is fairly certain, is not how heart attacks work.

“Perhaps not,” Laetitia sniffs, when he tries to tell her this (because for some reason they are not sitting at opposite ends of the table and hence John can’t help but react to everything she says), hand tightening around his glass until it’s a bloody marvel it doesn’t snap in two, “but unsolved deaths are hardly unheard of in this house.”

The focus of attention is a little different this time (‘this time’ because Laetitia has an incredibly focused mind, capable of steering any conversation towards Sherlock’s father with uncanny precision). This time, John’s eyes aren’t on Sherlock, but on the woman sitting at the head of the table. 

She at least gives the impression of calm, to the point of regal, even, with faded red hair and undeniable wrinkles but a glare John can feel the force of from here. Even Laetitia seems to falter for a moment, although that might just be wishful thinking. Besides the eyes, however, the rest of her projects an impression of polite benevolence Mycroft would be proud of.

“I would thank you, Letty,” the woman says – colder than Sherlock or Mycroft – “not to bring your accusations into this house.”

Her grey-streaked red hair tells him her heritage; her arched brows and unruly curls her descendants.

This woman, it turns out, is Arabella Holmes.

Sherlock’s mother.

Unfortunately, rather than being able to talk to the woman, John has had to gather everything from a series of backhanded insults and carefully targeted verbal sniping between her and her sister. If nothing else, John is gaining some insight into what the Holmes brothers consider to be normal sibling relationships.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Laetitia pantomimes, with a smile of pure malice aimed at her sister, “have I said something out of line? It’s just that, what with another rush of corpses, one can’t help but recall the old days around here.”

Next to him, Sherlock is uncharacteristically silent. (More characteristically, he isn’t eating a thing, and John finds he’s too focused on the sibling sniping to even try arguing.) For the entire meal – in fact, since before they sat down, proudly and at the very moment Laetitia would see them as clearly as possible – John has had one hand firmly closed around Sherlock’s. Sherlock hasn’t acknowledged it, but then, he hasn’t let go either.

“I do hope you’re not over-straining yourself, Bella,” Laetitia says later. “I do hate to think of you all alone in this house.”

“Don’t worry, Letty, it’s the company that makes it unbearable.”

And later still, as dessert sits there on all of their plates, she ends a speech with, “Shame about your sons, Bella, but what can you do?”

Finally, without a word, Sherlock stands and sweeps out of the room; John thinks he’s taken his appetite with him.

When he’s gone, Arabella says, quite calmly and clearly, “Neither of them has disappointed me yet, Letty. Which is more than I can say for yours.”

\----------

Mycroft informs him that the two of them –

“Together?”

“I think it best not to leave you loose and separate in this house.”

\- are staying in ‘the Blue Room’.

“Not Sherlock’s room?” John asks quietly. Not that he wants to see it – alright, that’s a bloody lie, it’s more that he doesn’t necessarily want to sleep in it. It’s just that it’s happened sooner or later with most of his exes, and, well, Sherlock isn’t most people. John wants to see everything about him. Or at least that’s what he thinks, most of the time.

Mycroft allows him the courtesy of a subtle shake of the head. “I’m afraid he rather despises the place now,” he informs, with a sort of detached regret – were Mycroft capable of such a thing. “Psychological reasons, you understand: former addicts rarely relish returning to their rehabilitation lodgings, and in this respect I think you’ll find my brother to be unusually normal.”

_Christ._

John just wants this day to be over. Multiple corpses he can handle, but however much he’ll admit that he wanted to pry, he wasn’t ready for this house, or its inhabitants. Its corridors are wide and unfriendly; its rooms are haunted by ghosts of the past, a bad dream lingering on. He’s always wanted to know a bit more of Sherlock’s past – the facets the man won’t let him get to, for all that it’s seemed so very important, as if he can’t properly love him without knowing. 

_Be careful what you wish for_ indeed.

John doesn’t want to know anymore.

More than anything, he wants to wake up tomorrow in Baker Street, as if none of this had ever happened.

Unfortunately, there is a dead woman on the ground floor, another in the morgue, and three men besides. (As Sherlock had commented over dinner, murmured into John’s ear for the clear purpose of aggravating those across the table, Algernon’s death is little comfort – and naturally even less so to John.) For their own differing reasons, neither John nor Sherlock will leave until this case is over.

Mycroft nods and leaves him there.

Christ, let it be over.

\----------

There’s one more surprise waiting for him before he can hide in the relative safety of the bedroom.

“Hello, John.”

He spins around to see Arabella standing opposite the door, clearly waiting.   
For a moment, he’s too awed to say anything. It’s incredible, despite having already spent (too much) time with that number of relatives in the room, to see the likenesses shining through – right down to the small twitch of a smile directed at him.

“Um,” he says intelligently, creating the fantastic first impression he’d always planned. “Ma’am.”

“Oh good Lord,” she laughs, breaking the spell, “don’t worry about that. Arabella, please.”

There’s another ‘um’ fighting its way out. John wishes he could shoot the bastard. “John,” he says instead. 

“Yes, I know who you are,” she reassures him with an amused smile. “We did just eat dinner together, you might recall.”

“Wish I could forget,” he says, then starts and goes on, “God, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean – ”

“Ssh,” she interrupts. “We won’t get anywhere if you’re too scared to talk to me. Listen, my sister is a poisonous cow, her family are bastards and bitches the lot of them, and the day I married into the Holmeses was the proudest of my life. So don’t be afraid to speak your mind, John.”

He blinks. Then he smiles, because the bluntness of her words is a bloody relief.

However, rather than seize the opportunity, he feels the need to apologise, since the sight of her has reminded him of Geoffrey’s words just that afternoon.

“I’m sorry, I hadn’t realised,” he admits, “this is your home more than anybody else’s. And to have two of your staff die – ”

“Gossips, the lot of them,” she says, suggesting that a certain lack of respect for the dead for being dead isn’t an uncommon trait in the family. “Ms McReady heard everything that happened in this house – or at least she liked to think so – and that girl eavesdropped on _her_ , always hoping for something to use to her advantage. Useful for keeping track of things, but a little annoying at times.”

Before he can stop himself, he wonders, “So they might have heard something that meant they had to be killed?”

Arabella chuckled. “Tell me, is this my son rubbing off on you?”

“You get used to it, after a while.”

“Oh, don’t worry, I understand completely. The Holmes men are like that. If Mycroft ever makes his move, the lucky man – or woman – ” she adds, as if she’s covering something up, “will soon find themselves more politically or diplomatically minded. It’s their way. Their father had a rather similar effect on me.”

John hesitates. Arabella’s eyes narrow.

“Something wrong?” she asks. Quickly John shakes his head.

“Sorry, no, it’s just your sister – ”

“My sister says a great deal of things, John,” she says coolly. “Believe me, if you’ll believe nobody else: it does not do to listen to them.”

Her eyes dare him to release the question filling his brain, louder and louder until there’s nothing he can think besides that and the simple word ‘no’. He doesn’t trust himself to so much as open his mouth; knows that the question is right there, lying in wait.

As the army taught him so well, he straightens his back and bites his tongue and just waits.

Eventually, after masterfully letting the silence stretch out, she nods approvingly. John has the strangest sense that he’s passed some sort of test. 

“Holmes men,” she says, “also always do better with somebody to hold them in place.

“Thankyou, John.”

One more similarity: apparently Sherlock inherited his dramatic exits from his mother.

\---------

One of the more useful aspects of this relationship is that these days John can actually get Sherlock to go to sleep.

The flipside is that now he has to deal with the nightmares.

Sherlock sleeps like the dead: still, terrifyingly silent, almost not breathing at all. The first few nights when he’d crashed out in their shared bed, sheer fear had led John to risk breaking the miracle by checking Sherlock’s pulse. Now they’ve adapted, a little: when they’re together, John sleeps with his head resting on Sherlock’s chest, soothed and lulled by the steady sound of heartbeats.

It means that he hears the moment they start to accelerate; the only warning he’ll get to take cover.

He’s always careful to hide the bruises from an unexpected backhand or a belatedly noticed kick. The last thing he needs is to make the Yarders think Sherlock’s an abusive boyfriend. (Laughable, incidentally, for all that people might assume otherwise.) 

In the moments afterwards, though, once he’s reoriented himself, John fights his way in: takes the hits he must in order to get his arms around Sherlock and hold him still. “Sherlock,” he says, again and again. “Sherlock, it’s just a dream!” _Hopefully_ , he thinks, because if he’s right, then Sherlock’s nightmares are filled with falling. Falling and failing.

When Sherlock finally comes round, he blinks up at John, oddly young for a second. (Occasionally John is reminded that he’s the older one in this relationship. It’s unexpected, to say the least.) 

“It’s okay,” John says. “Look at me.”

“But – ”

“Focus on me.”

“John – ”

John seizes a hand; drags it up to trace over the scar on his shoulder, the reason he’s here at all. “What made this?”

Sherlock’s still too distant. He hates it. 

“Sherlock. Look at it. What made it?”

“Bullet.”

“Obviously,” he says with a laugh, reassuring but pressing at the same time. “Look at it, Sherlock. What kind of bullet?”

“Sniper. Several houses away; two floors up.” Sherlock pauses. “Three.” Fingers and eyes both trace the webbing of scar tissue. “Clean shot. Less clean recovery.”

“I remember.” John pulls the hand across, Sherlock’s fingers tracing across to the wound lower, just above his hip. “This one?”

Sherlock’s starting to come back to him now; he doesn’t hesitate. “Knife,” he says, then looks closer. “Bowie knife. Army issue.” He frowns, fingers circling the wound. “Deliberate, but messy: not a soldier, but a soldier’s weapon. Somebody stole it.”

“Right,” John agrees, and doesn’t give details, because that’s not the point. “This one?”

“Fell off your bicycle,” and Sherlock smiles softly – the way he never does when he’s fully awake – presumably at the cliché of it.

And they go from there, time unimportant, minutes bleeding into each other as John slowly brings Sherlock home.

John's body is a a monument to the battles he's fought and moments he’s lived when he could have teetered, fallen over the edge. Sherlock's eyes memorize every line, touch them. Give John an excellent reason to have survived. Give John a reward for having survived.

\----------

When he wakes up again, John is alone, straightened out again to avoid the cold of the other side of the bed.

And this, too, is normal.

\----------

Tea in hand – he’d found somebody in the kitchen already brewing a pot, squinted at them to see if he could remember their name, received it anyway, and is now thinking _Leopold_ over and over until he can not only match name to face but also stop wanting to both laugh and cry at the same time – he goes Sherlock hunting.

The corpse-check bears fruit: Sherlock is back with Jaime, half of the room emptied into the other half, and now looking carefully between her body and a mobile he’s produced from somewhere. (John notes that the mess includes an empty, crumpled evidence bag, and with a sigh amends that ‘somewhere’). 

“Found anything?” 

A distracted hum.

“What time did you get up?”

“Before you.”

John wishes Sherlock didn’t act like such a child sometimes. It makes the whole ‘incredible and inescapable attraction’ thing rather awkward.

He sits himself down on the chair and waits. Even before Sherlock, he was good at waiting, and now he’s used to a man who announces himself as someone who doesn’t talk for days on end (before delivering with interest all at once).

“Whose mobile?” he finally prompts, as Sherlock sighs in exasperation.

“Boyfriend’s,” he’s told, before it lands in his surprised hands. “She invited him here.”

John frowns down at the open text. “I thought she poisoned him?”

“Time of death is being estimated approximately two hours before that message was received.” John takes a moment to work out if the death in question is the girl’s or the boyfriend’s. There are far too many bodies in this case. “He received an invitation from her after his death, John.” 

Trying to follow all this, John asks, “So somebody tried to set him up?” 

Sherlock smiles, and it takes a moment for John to realise he hadn’t said ‘she’. “Precisely. A scapegoat. Much like Slater,” John looks up in time to catch another phone, fumbling this one, “who was informed that she was in danger from her lover, but ready and waiting for him all the same. Chose to kill himself at the news.” Sherlock is clearly confused by the motive there. “They weren’t counting on that. Given the gun, he was supposed to live; supposed to run.”

“So we’re looking for somebody else to send all these texts…and want to frame the beekeeper?”

“I doubt it was a grudge. Too arbitrary. Nothing to tie him directly besides the girl. We’re looking for whoever else she was sleeping with.”

“Somebody else?”

Sherlock looks at him, with the clear and familiar expression that says he can’t believe he has to explain this. “The _make-up_ , John. Why was she wearing it? Who was she waiting for?”

“The boyfriend…?” John starts, already knowing as he says it that it’s wrong, not needing to see Sherlock’s frustrated roll of the eyes.

“He wanted to kill her; he was poisoned; he wasn’t supposed to come, John.”

“Slater?”

“Killed himself when told she was with another man. No, there’s a third party in this.”

“You mean the burglar?”

“No, not the burglar, John; forget the burglar. He’s nonsense, a distraction, he – ”

And there it was. The moment in every case when Sherlock’s mind won out, a solution burning through so clearly that it practically shone out of his eyes. Truth be told, John would happily endure every insult and every childish tantrum just to see these moments, when Sherlock was quite simply the most incredible person in the room – any room.

“A _distraction_ ,” Sherlock repeats, as if he needs to confirm the word to himself, looking rather stunned by his realisation. He looks at John. “That’s what it is.”

“What?”

“All of it.” His fingers come together under his chin, pause, and then snap out again, nervous twitches, all the facts coming together in front of him, conducted into position. “Whoever did this, they knew about me.”

“Not much of a revelation there.”

“No, John, they _knew_ me. Think: what would be the best way to keep me out of a case?”

“Besides your family?”

“Yes, besides that. You’re not thinking. Domestic abuse, spurned lovers, eavesdroppers: what does that sound like?”

It sounds like an awful lot of things, to be honest. _Mental_ , for one; _depressing_ as well. Neither of which are anything like Sherlock, so John thinks harder.

And, not for the first time, he feels the world tip a little as he aligns his thoughts with Sherlock’s and appreciates all over again just who it is he’s in love with. It’s not just the thrill; there’s the terror as well.

“They’re boring.”

Sherlock smiles in acknowledgement.

“John, I was never supposed to be here. Somebody tried too hard to make sure I wouldn’t want to come.”

“Who then?” It’s the obvious question, and one John will never get tired of asking. It’s not about pandering to Sherlock’s whims; it’s about needing to know as much as he does. “Who’d orchestrate all of that?”

“Somebody,” Sherlock says, voice turning suddenly dark, “who wanted to be cleverer than they were.”

\----------

There’s something very unfair about trying to keep up with Sherlock once his mind’s set on a chase. Despite what people assume, pursuits across rooftops are fine: it’s all about running as fast as you can and not looking down. Striding with purpose, though; that’s a little bit harder. If nothing else, there’s the fact that John absolutely outright refuses to run to keep up.

When there’s an abrupt ninety-degree turn into the library, something goes ‘click’ in John’s mind.

“Algernon?”

“Algernon.”

Sherlock ascends the wide sweeping stairs to the second level, for the first time looking properly at home here.

“Wealthy and well-bred enough to attract the girl’s attention, and he wanted it: wanted to prove he was just as good as the rest of his family.”

John recalls Arabella’s weary words of yesterday. _“Ms McReady heard everything that happened in this house – or at least she liked to think so – and that girl eavesdropped on_ her. “She knew something. Something he couldn’t get out of Ms McReady.”

He fancies he can hear a smile in Sherlock’s voice; otherwise there’s no acknowledgement of John’s own data acquisition (or whatever Sherlock’s calling it today). “Definitely an easier target. Whatever it was, though, he had to make sure neither of them would talk. Hence the murders.”

“Which ones?”

Sherlock tilts his head to the side, not looking around but still conceding the point. “The women. The thief as well, as their alleged murderer – Algernon always did fall over in the grounds, he must have seen a sort of justice in that death.”

“So the boyfriend was, what? Unlucky timing?”

Sherlock hates the idea of coincidence. “Perhaps he said the wrong thing; perhaps her new consort gave her ideas.” John doesn’t even laugh at the word ‘consort’, he’s so enthralled by the revelations now coming thick and fast. “John, she did it. Before she left for good – not, I think, in the way she’d intended – she made sure he wouldn’t come after her.”

“The beekeeper?”

“Was never even in the picture.”

The truth, as ever, hurts more than a little. “He knew that.”

“Yes, I suppose he did.”

“No, Sherlock, he _knew_ that. That’s why he killed himself.”

Sherlock pauses and looks at him, suddenly seeming uncomfortable. In fact, he must be, because a moment later he pushes on regardless. “It doesn’t matter _why_ he killed himself, only that he did. Two unplanned deaths of scapegoats, coupled with the disposal of the thief – not as necessary as he thought, he just didn’t have to say anything, but he thought he was so _clever_.”

“Maybe that’s what gave Jaime the idea.”

“What?”

“To poison her boyfriend.”

“Yes, perhaps,” Sherlock dismisses, waving off the point like a wasp. “With the women dead as well, it becomes too unwieldy. Anything breaks under that strain.”

John frowns, trying to follow the words, get them to fit the whole picture. “So, that’s why he had a heart attack?” When Sherlock looks at him in a brief flash of confusion, as if John hasn’t so much headed off his train of thought as smashed right into it, John realises that, as ever, Sherlock had been speaking rather more metaphorically.

“A rather conveniently timed one,” Sherlock judges. “It’s been bothering me since I heard.”

“One death is an accident, a sixth is pure carelessness?” John jokes, if only to watch the reference go whistling over Sherlock’s head.

“Something like that.” His eyes narrow, the classic sign of Sherlock Holmes in deep thought. “Weak, weedy, uninspired, unfit, unworthy in everyone’s eyes,” Sherlock muses. “Think: what would he want more than anything?”

“Respect?” 

“Which he would get by…?”

John doesn’t get it; and then, like an anvil from the sky, everything he’s heard since getting here about the Sackvilles comes back to him, and he does.

Sherlock’s family is ridiculous.

“Five people are dead because he thought he could get the _house_?”

“You always seem surprised by the worst in people,” Sherlock observes, scanning his surroundings. “It’s rather touching.”

John scowls at him. He could say something about how it’s better to try to see the best than the worst; that not everybody leaps to the worst conclusion; that it’s called _not making assumptions_ , and trying to keep some sort of grasp on reality.

Knowing it would all only fall on the same deaf ears as ever, though, he decides not to comment.

Instead, he asks, “What are you looking for?”

“Whatever he was looking for.”

“What would he need, anyway? I thought your father made sure none of the Sackvilles are getting the house.” As it leaves his lips, he winces. He’s been trying so very hard not to mention Sherlock’s father. And, sure enough, John sees him go still. 

“He needed to invalidate my father’s words.” Sherlock turns to look at him. “Say, by proving that he was a murderer.”

Proof. Sherlock’s holy grail. 

John doesn’t want to look at Sherlock’s face. He doesn’t think he’ll like what he sees.

“If the Sackvilles hadn’t been so eager to capitalise on the mourning period, they’d have seen it. Cardiac arrest, but not a heart attack. More than one person was poisoned in this case.” He pauses, and when John doesn’t jump in, he makes an exasperated sound and says, “Cyanide, John.”

“Bloody hell.” John tries to picture it; wishes he hadn’t. “How?”

“Compressed gas. No signs of ingestion or injection, according to the report.” John doesn’t ask how Sherlock got hold of any report of the kind; reminds himself that Mycroft is right there, on hand.

“You think it happened here?”

“I think my father was rather careful about what was overheard.” Sherlock runs a gloved finger along the shelf, beneath the books, ignoring John’s intake of breath at just how idiotic a thing it is to do. “One key for entering; one key for those trying to break in.” A pause; a twist of a smile. “It’s what I would do.”

“You’re not – ” John starts, only to let the sentence trail away again when he realises he doesn’t know how it was going to end. Not what? His father? A murderer?

“Sometimes I wonder,” Sherlock says softly, as if to himself – as if he hasn’t heard John at all, caught now in the mystery of the past. “It would hardly be difficult.”

“You know how to get inside?”

“I can.” Sherlock doesn’t move, but continues to softly trace first the dark wood, and then the individual leather spines of each book, as if searching for something. More than anything, John wants to drag him away – away from this room, this house, everything. He recognises Sherlock’s expression all too well. He remembers all too well every case with Moriarty.

“Sherlock,” he says quietly, when he sees those fingers pause, and then retrace their steps. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what? Risk it?”

“Don’t look.”

Sherlock looks at him as if he’s gone insane. “John, do you really think I can? Do you really think I could leave this?”

“You don’t have to know.”

“Yes, I do!” Sherlock’s eyes are burning with something. It’s too similar to scenting Moriarty for comfort – one of the many reasons why John wants to back away right now. This is too much; this is too personal. This is everything Sherlock hadn’t wanted to come back to, and frankly, John thinks he can see why. “This case has hung over me my entire life, John, and I finally have an answer, right here!”

“And after you know for sure? What if they’re right, and he did kill those people: what then? Who do you tell? Mycroft? Your mother?”

“John, the thought that I could have known and I walked away – it will eat away at me, every single night.” 

“And knowing your father’s a killer, that won’t?”

“No.” Because to Sherlock, nothing is more important than not knowing. “John, it would stay a secret.”

No, it wouldn’t. That’s the thing: secrets have a way of getting out. “Then you don’t know me very well. Because if you know for sure, and you say nothing, I very well might. If you lie there every night and you’re happy just _knowing_ , then no, Sherlock, I won’t put up with it.” He hesitates, then says, “I won’t stay.”

It’s a low blow, so John probably deserves the response:

“Then you don’t have to know.”

Nevertheless, the words hurt; cut deep, and John hopes it’s deeper than Sherlock intended. 

But he won’t let it show. If he fell down every time Sherlock did this – chose to be alone, chose to be _cruel_ , insisted he didn’t need John, tried to walk away – well, they could have both died a long time ago.

So instead, he says, “It’s been a secret all these years, Sherlock. I think it can stay that way.”

And then he turns and walks away: to the stairs, down, and out of the room.

As he passes out of Sherlock’s sight, the strength finally leaves him, and outside he collapses against the wall.

“Thankyou,” a voice says to his left, making him jump.

“Does your entire family just wait around waiting for dramatic entrances?”

Arabella smiles. “I understand,” she says, “that Sherlock has a solution to the case?”

John can’t say it. Not exactly. He thinks of Arabella alone in this house; remembers Geoffrey complaining about her refusal to go exploring. He wonders if Arabella knows the truth, or has tried to avoid it. He wonders what the truth even is.

In the end, all he says is, “Algernon.”

“I thought as much.” There’s a twinkle in her eye, but it’s not at all clear whether that shows confirmation or a lie. (Experience with Mycroft just breeds familiarity, not an answer.) Things get so confused around here.

“I know we can seem a little odd – ” she’s kind enough not to acknowledge John’s involuntary snort “ – but John, I believe I speak for every member worth knowing that you are more than welcome into this family.”

She pauses, before adding, “But you are also welcome to leave this house. I assure you, not a single person would blame you.”

\----------

A few minutes later, Sherlock emerges.

John looks up at him, but no. No, he can’t tell. Sherlock just looks like Sherlock – a carefully studied form, nothing but neutrality and a blank surface, practised indifference and not a hint of mental conflict either way. John might call him a machine again, except unless he’s mistaken this is just as much for his benefit as anything else. Punishment, perhaps – John will never know what the answer was – but also a blessing in a different guise.

The first thing Sherlock does is turn to his mother and nod in a slightly stiff way. Again, John can’t tell anything from that – he doesn’t think he’s actually seen them alone together before. 

Apparently it’s nothing awful from her perspective, since Arabella just smiles, albeit slightly sadly. 

If he’s reading the situation right, John reckons this is the point when anybody else would, oh, hug, maybe. (Although admittedly his own mum hugs at every available opportunity, all huge theatrical gestures and feigned concern.) Instead there seems to be an entire conversation taking place through eye contact, and truth be told, John’s not wholly convinced his being there makes any difference in that.

Arabella nods, barely perceptibly, and then reaches out and touches Sherlock’s cheek lightly. John still sees Sherlock stiffen slightly, although he does relax a moment later, abruptly looking almost uncertain, and John thinks he isn’t supposed to see any of this.

Finally, she sweeps away, leaving only a faint wisp of her perfume in the air.

John looks back at Sherlock; their eyes meet, and if nothing else, John knows that they will never have to speak of this.

“Come on,” he says, standing and holding out his hand. “Let’s go home.”


End file.
